Recently we introduced a new family of BlackBerry smartphones running the new BlackBerry 7 OS. To coincide, the BlackBerry 7 SDK went gold to support these new product launches. We’ve seen strong adoption of the new tools for BlackBerry 7 smartphones. We have also seen many existing applications ported over to these new BlackBerry 7 devices.

To enable developers to start testing and optimizing their BlackBerry applications for two upcoming smartphones, we are now releasing a beta of the new BlackBerry simulators, and encourage you to check out BlackBerry® Developer Zone for more information. In addition, we have opened up BlackBerry App World to enable vendors to start posting their applications for sale in time to be included for consideration in launch activities for both of these upcoming devices. To be fully prepared for launch, it is important for BlackBerry developers to note the following two key items and how you can get ready for launch:

1. Re-Posting Your Apps in BlackBerry App World for BlackBerry 7: BlackBerry App World vendors are encouraged to test their applications as soon as possible using the new BlackBerry 7 SDK, and then return to the BlackBerry App World vendor portal to post their applications for sale for the new BlackBerry smartphones.

2. Preparing Now for New Screen Sizes and Resolutions Supported by BlackBerry 7: BlackBerry 7 is designed to retain binary compatibility with our BlackBerry® 6 OS platform, and is also designed to support a variety of new screen resolutions and screen sizes that may require some developers to update and re-compile their existing applications. These new smartphones will also support new screen sizes and resolutions so we have posted new information on what screen characteristics will be supported by BlackBerry 7 along with these new smartphone simulators to emulate each of these different configurations.

New Screen Characteristics Supported by BlackBerry 7 and New Simulators for Testing

One new BlackBerry smartphone will feature a 360 x 480 all touch interface. Application developers will likely find that their BlackBerry® Torch™ 9800 smartphone builds will run on this new BlackBerry smartphone without change.

The second upcoming BlackBerry smartphone will feature a 480 x 360 touch + keyboard interface. Application developers will either need to add touch support to their existing BlackBerry® Bold™ 9700 smartphone apps, or modify their BlackBerry Torch 9800 smartphone builds to account for landscape being in a vertical orientation.

We have now posted the new BlackBerry 7 smartphone simulators to emulate each of these form factors and screen resolutions. The associated simulator model numbers for the two simulators are 9380 and 9790. With these new simulators, you can now start testing your BlackBerry 7 applications on these new smartphone form factors.

We thank you for your ongoing support and we trust that this new information will help you get your apps fully tested and posted to BlackBerry App World in time for the upcoming BlackBerry smartphone launches!